Some multicarrier receivers employ more than one antenna to receive multicarrier communication signals through a communication channel. The multiple antennas allow the receiver to receive at an increased data rate, may allow the receiver to operate under noisy channel conditions, and/or may allow the receiver to receive more than one spatial channel. One drawback to receiving with more than one antenna is that it consumes additional power. For each additional receive antenna, a multicarrier receiver may also have an additional low-noise amplifier, additional downconverter circuitry, an additional automatic-gain-control (AGC) amplifier, and an additional analog-to-digital converter. Furthermore, for each additional antenna that is operating, a multicarrier receiver performs digital signal processing operations on signals received by each antenna. The power consumed by this front-end circuitry and the subsequent processing operations associated with each antenna can be significant, especially for portable wireless communication devices that rely on batteries.
Thus, there are general needs for multicarrier receivers and methods for receiving multicarrier signals with reduced power consumption. There are also general needs for multicarrier receivers and methods for receiving multicarrier signals with reduced power consumption without a reduction in system performance.